Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Michael Nottebrock <lofi AT freebsd.org>]

On Monday, 21. May 2007, rob AT robmyers.org wrote:
> Quoting Michael Nottebrock <lofi AT freebsd.org>:
> > My personal take on this is that since the definition g., which explains
> > what the "Work" is, only defines the "work offered under the terms of
> > this License", you don't need to apply that same definition to the
> > "Adaptation" (the "work based upong the Work"), unless you /want/ to
> > indeed put it under the same license.
>
> For BY-SA, adaptations must be placed under the same license. This is
> how copyleft works.
>
> You cannot arbitrarily decide that the "adaptation" doesn't have to be
> under the original license (unless it's Fair Use). This contradicts
> the license.
>
> But, based on (US) copyright law, as far as I can tell, a web page is
> not an adaptation of an image that it just uses as an illustration. It
> may be a collective work.

Yes, I was afraid I'd be misunderstood here. I didn't write "that the 
adaptation does not have to be under the original license", I wrote that you 
need not apply definition g. to the "Adaptation" in question.

To clarify: Most of the confusion regarding the scope of the copyleft implied 
by SA in my experience is caused by people reading "the resulting work" in 
the deed and going, "Okay, I have to Share Alike the 'resulting work'. What 
is the 'resulting work' now, exactly?"

So they then turn to the legal code and find definition g, which basically 
says the (licensed) "Work" is supposed to mean /everything/ it can possibly 
mean, then take this definition of the "Work" and apply it to 'resulting 
work' and conclude: "/Everything/ that comes even near a *-*-SA licensed Work 
needs to be SA. Jeez, that's a bummer."

I suppose that is what happened to Will.

But - the definition g. is only so long, verbose and all-embracing to make 
sure there are no loopholes and ambiguousities regarding what kind of work is 
covered by the license. It does not at all relate to adaptations. 

The definition of an "Adapation" is much less detailed and all-inclusive, and 
that is the relevant part one should be looking at - in case of Will's 
testcase website, it's rather easy to judge: The derivative work in question 
is very clearly the altered image and *only* the altered image - the website 
just uses the image as an illustration, the website is not *derived* from the 
image. So it is the altered image that the copyleft applies to - nothing 
else.

FWIW, Will's testcase website is not a "Collection" as per the license 
definitions either. Will's testcase website really is just the place where 
the actual "Adaptation" in question - the altered image - happens to 
be /reproduced/, thus per the license terms it is required to feature the 
credit, the demarcation of changes and the link to the license terms of the 
image and otherwise isn't affected by it.


Cheers,
-- 
   ,_,   | Michael Nottebrock               | lofi AT freebsd.org
 (/^ ^\) | FreeBSD - The Power to Serve     | http://www.freebsd.org
   \u/   | K Desktop Environment on FreeBSD | http://freebsd.kde.org

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